


Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot

by seibelsays



Series: New Year's Eve [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Makeup, New Year's Eve, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:27:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28421685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seibelsays/pseuds/seibelsays
Summary: This year, New Year's Eve was just another night. No party, no midnight kiss. Just another night.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Darcy Lewis
Series: New Year's Eve [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1587388
Comments: 12
Kudos: 91
Collections: Bucky Barnes Bingo 2020





	Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot

**Author's Note:**

> For my Bucky Barnes Bingo 2020 card, prompt Running Away

“What’s Intel got?” Bucky asked, fussing with his earbud and staring into the camera.

From the screen, Sam frowned at him. _“Intel? Nothing.”_

“Come on, Sam, it’s New Year’s Eve. Something’s gotta be up. Somewhere.” Bucky sighed and looked away. “Anywhere,” he muttered.

Sam gave him a strange look. _“The way I heard it, the last two years you’ve done nothing but grumble about getting sent out on New Years and now you’re grumbling that there’s nowhere to go?”_

“Yeah well, the last two years I had somewhere to be, didn’t I.”

Sam sighed. _“Right. I’m sorry, man.”_

Bucky shrugged his reply. It was fine. He was fine.

_“Have you talked to her at all?”_

He was lying to himself. “No.”

_“Don’t you think you should?”_

“What would I say?”

_“Oh I don’t know, maybe something like ‘Breaking off our engagement was a mistake, I’m a miserable bastard without you, please forgive me?’ Any of that sound good to you?”_

“I’m pretty sure the problem was that I was usually a miserable bastard _with_ her, so.”

 _“She never seemed to mind.”_ Sam's face lit up red in short bursts as something flashed on the screen in front of him. _“Well, would you look at that. Looks like Intel has something for you tonight after all.”_

Thank goodness. “Sit rep,” Bucky replied, forcing thoughts of Darcy and all his many failings and regrets away.

Sam’s expression was blank and unreadable which only served to send his anxiety soaring up to a 15 out of 10.

_“The panic room at Astrolab North 1 just activated.”_

Bucky’s entire being went cold. Astrolab North 1 was Darcy’s lab. It took everything he had not to bolt out of his seat and sprint down the hall for a jet, his bike, anything, right then and there. But he was of no use to her without information. “What do we know?” he asked, his voice tight.

Sam’s eyes went a little unfocused as he studied the screen in front of him instead of the camera. _“Not much. I’m only seeing one entry code on the log tonight.”_ Sam paused. _“It’s Darcy’s code.”_ He looked back to the camera, to look Bucky in the eye as best he could like this. _“Are you clear? I’m not sending you out if-”_

“I’m clear,” Bucky interrupted. It wasn’t the entire truth, but even if it were a complete lie, he would still tell Sam he was fine. If there was any chance at all Darcy was in danger, there was no question. He was going.

Bucky held his breath as Sam stared at him for a long moment. He held his friend’s gaze, determined not to show any crack in demeanor at all. Any _hint_ that Bucky was compromised about this and Sam would assign someone else and that was completely unacceptable.

 _“Sending details now,”_ Sam said finally. A moment later, those details arrived, heralded by the buzz of Bucky’s phone in his pocket.

“Thank you, Sam.”

_“Don’t make me regret it, yeah?”_

Bucky nodded and moved to end the call. 

_“Barnes,”_ Sam said, causing Bucky to freeze with his finger just above the button. _“Be careful.”_

* * *

He skimmed the report from Intel. There wasn’t much to go on. Darcy’s code had been used to enter the lab at 9:30PM, the panic room activated at 11PM. There was no record of any other codes being used to access the lab, Darcy’s code hadn’t been used to swipe back out, and there was no sign of any non-authorized entry. No alarms had triggered, structural integrity alerts, and the cameras didn’t show anything amiss at all. Whatever had happened, someone had bypassed all of their security entirely.

Bucky fought down his rising panic. Whoever or whatever had caused Darcy to run for the panic room had done their homework. They knew every last weakness and now Darcy was in danger. The only thing keeping him from crawling out of his skin entirely was that Darcy had made it to the panic room.

Well. That and she wasn’t actually _his_ to worry over anymore, now was she.

“60 seconds!” the pilot yelled.

Bucky stood and checked his gear, forcing every last thought out of his head except for his mission. Darcy couldn’t afford for him to be distracted right now. They could sort through the rest after she was safe.

* * *

He quickly punched in his override code and the door silently slid open. He crept inside, methodically sweeping every corner of the room before moving into the hall that led to the main lab. Just beyond that would be the panic room. And Darcy.

All was quiet. Eerily quiet. And it was wrong, all wrong. Darcy and silence just didn’t coexist. The combination of the two right now sent his heart racing as his anxiety climbed ever higher. He wanted to start shooting or fighting or screaming - _something_ just to break the unnatural silence. But he couldn’t. Not until he ensured that Darcy - and the lab, he supposed - was safe and secure.

He swept the last corner, tapping the “cleared” signal into the small datapad attached to his wrist, sending the data back to Intel. He moved into the hall slowly, methodically making his way to the door to the lab. He paused just outside, listening intently. Still quiet. He tapped in his override code and swept into the lab, gun at the ready.

“AAAAGGHGGGHHH!!!” Darcy shrieked.

Bucky tensed, nearly squeezing the gun’s trigger and firing rounds blindly into the lab. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” Darcy yelled at him, jumping up from her desk and pulling headphones from her ears. 

He moved to her quickly and grabbed her arm, covering her with his own body as he moved back toward the door.

“Bucky, what the hell?!”

The door slid shut with a _clang_ in front of them. He pressed a hand to his earbud. “Primary exit compromised, moving to secondary.” He spun them around and started towards the other side of the lab.

“Again, what the hell?” Darcy hissed.

Bucky didn’t answer, too focused on getting Darcy out of the lab. She could rage at him all she wanted once he got her into a safe location. He pulled her along, rushing them to the back exit just in time to hear the _snick_ of the lock as that door locked down too.

“Secondary compromised,” Bucky barked into his earbud. “Get us out of here!”

Darcy punched him in the arm, causing him to yelp, but he didn’t release her. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Why the hell aren’t you in the panic room?” Bucky snapped back at her.

“Why would I be in the panic room?” Darcy asked.

Bucky stopped suddenly, causing Darcy to crash into his side. He automatically wrapped an arm around her, instinct and habit colliding. The way she immediately melted into his embrace, she must have felt it too.

Something wasn’t adding up. Darcy was alone in the lab. But it had been _Darcy’s_ code that activated the panic room.

“You haven’t gone into the panic room tonight?” he asked. “At all?”

“I haven’t been in there in weeks, not since I rotated the books and snacks we keep in there,” she replied. “What’s going on?”

“Intel reported your code activated the panic room.”

_“Intel was tired of watching the two of you mope!”_

Bucky glared up at the ceiling. “Steve?” he yelped.

_“We’re not opening the locks until you two talk it out.”_

“Jane?!?” Darcy yelled.

“You manufactured a potential hostage situation just to get the two of us in the same room?” Bucky yelled.

_“For the record, I had nothing to do with it!”_

“Great, Sam. I’ll leave you off the list of people I’m going to kill,” Darcy grumbled.

_“But I support the approach. You two are ridiculous.”_

“God, I hate you,” Bucky muttered. He looked down at Darcy, slowly and reluctantly letting her go. “I’m so sorry,” he said quietly to her.

Darcy scowled at the ceiling, her eyes narrowing at the cameras. “Oh trust me. I don’t blame you at all.”

He nodded and slowly backed away from her, giving her plenty of space. He realized he’d just sort of...shown up, scared the hell out of her, manhandled her around her own lab, and had just behaved terribly in general. He didn’t even have a proper excuse really - if this had been any other lab, if she had been a stranger, he wouldn’t have treated her with such familiarity. He fully expected to be on the receiving end of her wrath at some point, and it would be completely justified. 

She frowned at him, but said nothing, instead moving to the doors and giving them a jiggle. Nothing. “They’re really not going to let us out of here, are they?”

“They will eventually.”

“Happy new year to us,” Darcy grumbled. “I have to pee!” she yelled at the ceiling.

 _“Suffer,”_ Jane’s voice responded.

“If you _really_ want me to get you out of here, I’ll get you out,” Bucky offered quietly, then shrugged. “I can’t vouch for the structural integrity of the lab afterwards, but I’ll get you out.”

Darcy’s laugh was a little bitter. “Shoot first, ask questions later, right? How many explosives do you have stashed on you right now?”

“You know me.”

Darcy's smile melted from bitter to sad. “Yeah, I do,” she murmured. Silence fell between them again. It wasn’t entirely comfortable and he hated it.

“I would have thought you’d be at the party,” Bucky said, looking for anything to break the tension in the room. Again - Darcy and silence just don’t go together.

The look Darcy gave him could have incinerated paper. “And what reason would I have to go to the party, Bucky?”

He shrugged. “What reason would you have not to?”

She rolled her eyes and made a disgusted face. “You’re unbelievable.”

“What?” Bucky asked. “There’s no reason you couldn’t go.”

“Seriously?” she snapped. “Seriously. I have no reason not to go to the very party that you and I…” she stopped, her voice trailing off as she looked away. After a moment, she met his eyes again. “What about you? There’s no reason you couldn’t go to the party either.”

“I’m on call tonight.” It wasn’t entirely a lie. It just wasn’t the full truth either.

“That’s crap. You could have gotten off the roster easily and we both know it.”

Bucky stared at her, trying to come up with some reason, some excuse, _anything_ to refute her claim. But all he had was the truth.

So they were doing this. In front of the cameras and their friends and everything. Okay.

“I have no reason to be at that party without you, Darcy. That hasn’t changed.” He watched as Darcy swallowed hard, then looked down at her feet, and said nothing. “Nothing has changed,” he muttered.

Darcy scoffed at that. “Oh _please_.”

“No, I - that wasn’t -” Bucky stopped speaking, willing his stammering thoughts into some sort of order. “What I meant,” he said slowly, “was that...that...” Any possible reasoning that he might have attempted to give her simply dissolved when he saw the look on her face. Okay. Truth it was then. He took a deep breath and gathered his courage. He looked at Darcy, who was staring at him expectantly. “Darcy, I still...”

“Don’t say something you don’t mean just because you thought I was in danger tonight,” Darcy warned, her eyes pleading with him.

He considered that. Was that all it was?

No. He’d known the moment he broke their engagement that he’d made a mistake. It just took him until now to fully admit it.

“I’m still in love with you,” he replied. “That never changed. I never doubted that for a moment.”

“But it’s not enough. Is it. It’s not enough to stop you from running away.”

He hesitated. It could be enough. She could be more than enough. She always had been. But… “What I am about to ask is so outrageously selfish,” he said. “So feel free to hit me for it.” He took a moment to consider his words so carefully. He was only going to get one chance at this and he prayed that he didn’t mess it up. “The things that scare me? They’re all still there. Out there.” He tapped his head for emphasis. “Up here. And I let them get the best of me before. But...I think that if you could help me. Maybe they wouldn’t get the best of me again.”

Darcy looked on as he spoke, her expression completely blank. “You’re right. That is selfish. And so completely stupid. I was perfectly willing to help you before. You didn’t want it. You pushed me away instead.”

Bucky nodded, even as it felt like his heart was being ripped from his chest. She was absolutely right. He’d been an idiot and in doing so, lost her. He deserved her scorn and worse. 

She sighed and slumped against the desk next to him. “And I’m the fool who’s still in love with you too.”

Bucky snapped to look at her to find her looking up at him, a deadly serious expression on her face.

“I can’t do this again, Bucky,” she said. “If you’re here, that’s it. It’s for good. For keeps. I can’t go through this every time something scares you. Because with this life we live? _Things are going to scare you_. They scare me. You think I wasn’t terrified every time you got called out? That every time HYDRA started sniffing around Jane’s research they weren’t going to make the connection and use it to get to you? That something would happen and it would be my fault - or worse, no one’s fault but you spend the rest of your life blaming yourself? That sort of thinking keeps me awake at night. But at the end of the day, you were worth it. _We_ were worth it. And I was willing to do whatever it took to fight for it. So if we’re going to do this again, I need you to be on the same page. I can’t do it alone. I need you to be willing to fight for this too. And if you can’t do that, then this is where we part as friends.”

Bucky stared at her, scarcely able to believe what she was saying. That she was willing to give this - give _him_ \- another shot. Whatever she wanted, whatever she needed, whatever she asked, he would do it. They’d tried apart and it didn’t work. He wasn’t strong enough to spend the rest of his life without her.

“I can do that,” he promised.

She nodded, then looked at her watch. “Okay then good. You have about 60 seconds to get over here and give me my Before Midnight kiss.”

Bucky practically launched himself off the desk to get to her. He kissed her with everything he had, pouring out all of the fear and pain and sadness he’d been storing inside and refilling his heart with her, with them. She curled around him, winding her fingers through his hair and pulling him impossibly closer.

As they finally parted, Darcy hiccuped. He took her face in his hands, brushing away her tears with his thumbs.

“I love you so much, Darce,” he whispered. “It’s the only thing I know for sure.”

She nodded. “I love you, too.” She leaned in and kissed him again, and he found himself choking back a sob of relief, the sweetest ache filling his chest. She pulled away with a watery smile, wiping away his own tears as he had done hers. “No more running away, okay? That’s done now.”

He nodded. “I promise.”

A small chime sounded on her phone. “Midnight,” she whispered. “Happy New Year, Bucky.”

He leaned in and kissed her slowly, giving her the At Midnight kiss she was owed, this year and every other for the rest of their years together. 

“Happy New Year.”


End file.
